'White women' for Harris meeting raised millions, broke Zoom
PALM BEACH, Fla. (NewsNation) — Nearly 200,000 people met on Zoom to build support among white women for Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign. There were so many participants that the meeting crashed several times, according to the women on the call.
According to polling, the white women voter demographic supported Republican nominee Donald Trump in the past two elections. White women supported Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016 by a margin of 47% to 45%, Pew Research shows. In the 2020 election, an even higher number of white women, 53%, supported Trump.
Democrats believe Republican backing of abortion bans since the 2020 Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade will motivate young women to the polls, attract independent women and potentially attract some Republican women to the Democrats.
Michigan State Sen. Mallory McMorrow said attending the record-breaking meeting was "incredible' and that Zoom has never had a meeting larger than 100,000 people.
"Zoom had to bring in extra engineers to figure out how to handle more people. It crashed multiple times," McMorrow said Friday on "CUOMO." "The donation link went down. ... It was so exciting. From 2016 to now, white women have seen the impacts of a Donald Trump presidency."
Conservative commentator Liz Wheel "completely disagreed" with McMorrow's stance, along with the thousands of Zoom attendees.
"Kamala is dangerous as a candidate. She's extreme," Wheel said on "CUOMO." "She's bad for women, she's bad for our country," Wheel said, criticizing the vice president's handling of immigration and the border.
The meeting was organized by Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, a gun-safety group with about 10 million members. It also included activists, podcasters, the singer Pink and regular voters, several who said they regretted not doing enough before the 2016 election that put Trump in the White House.
Hours after Biden's announcement, more than 40,000 people joined a Zoom call for Black women supporters. One for Black men on Monday drew more than 50,000 people and there have been separate calls for South Asian women, LGBTQ allies, and white men.
Reuters contributed to this report.